|
State

Ex-PSU counsel's pension criticized

The advice of former Supreme Court Justice Cynthia A. Baldwin will take center stage this week at a pretrial hearing for three former Penn State administrators charged with covering up child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach.

Email Newsletters

Daily Photo Galleries

Traveling by Jeep, boat and foot, Tribune-Review investigative reporter Carl Prine and photojournalist Justin Merriman covered nearly 2,000 miles over two months along the border with Mexico to report on coyotes — the human traffickers who bring illegal immigrants into the United States. Most are Americans working for money and/or drugs. This series reports how their operations have a major impact on life for residents and the environment along the border — and beyond.

Penn State University's former top lawyer retired last year with a $143,337 annual state pension — after pulling out more than $356,000 in personal contributions to the state's ailing pension fund.

In just two years as Penn State vice president and general counsel, Cynthia Baldwin, 68, of McKeesport sweetened her pension by nearly $30,000 from the time she retired in 2008 as a state Supreme Court justice receiving a yearly pension of $113,521.

“The pension that Ms. Baldwin receives is commensurate with the number of positions she held serving the commonwealth for 31 years,” said Baldwin's lawyer, Charles DeMonaco.

Baldwin's benefits reflect formulas in place for state employees who went to work prior to January 2011. Two years ago, lawmakers reduced benefits and outlawed lump sum withdrawals for new hires as the state grappled with unfunded pension obligations that reached $41 billion this year.

Penn State trustee Anthony Lubrano called her retirement package “unbelievable” in light of Baldwin's handling of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Baldwin sat in on grand jury testimony given by three Penn State administrators but later said she was not representing them. The administrators have asked a judge to bar Baldwin from testifying against them, claiming they were led to believe she was acting as their lawyer.

DeMonaco has said Baldwin acted properly at all times with regard to her duties at Penn State.

When she went to work at Penn State in 2010, she ceased receiving her pension. When she left in 2012, her pension rose, according to records the Tribune-Review obtained.

Her lump sum withdrawals totaled $356,710.58, equal to her contributions into the state employees' retirement fund — which is $17.9 billion short of what it needs to meet current obligations — plus 4 percent compounded interest.

DeMonaco said she earned her pension in a long and distinguished career that included stints as a public school teacher McKeesport; an instructor at Penn State's McKeesport campus; a lawyer with the attorney general's office; 16 years as a judge in Allegheny County, where she was the first black woman elected to the court; an appointment to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which she held for two years before her initial retirement; and later, her Penn State job.

Baldwin joins a small but growing group of state retirees collecting six-figure pensions. A 2012 Tribune-Review investigation found that 658 of the state's 300,000-plus state and school retirees collected pensions of more than $100,000 a year — some in excess of $300,000 a year. Most of those people worked as public school administrators or professors at Penn State or the 14 State System of Higher Education universities.

“We've got to come up with a different system,” said Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County, chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

“Taxpayers of Pennsylvania are paying for this. This doesn't come from some private corporation. This has to be looked at. Not her in particular, but this goes to show you why we have got to get away from defined benefits and go to defined contributions,” Folmer said.

A Penn State alumna, Baldwin was on the university's board of trustees from 1995 through 2010 and chaired the board from 2004-07.

Days after she resigned as a trustee, administration officials selected her to become the school's first general counsel at a salary of $321,000, a move former state Auditor General Jack Wagner called symptomatic of a culture of insider influence at Penn State.

Lubrano said the size of Baldwin's benefit and others like it affects the cost of education in Pennsylvania.

“We either made promises we knew we weren't going to be able to afford, or we made promises we knew we couldn't keep. Either way, (pensions) are a problem,” he said.

Public employee unions argue their members contributed to the system while the state consistently failed to meet minimum funding obligations. They say lawmakers, not pension plan beneficiaries, made the funding problem.

Debra Erdley is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-320-7996 or derdley@tribweb.com.

TribLive commenting policy

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments  either by the same reader or different readers.

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.

Total Promotional Solutions

A division of Trib Total Media is your one-stop-shop for all of your branded merchandise needs.

We specialize in providing quality affordable promotional products for every type of business including non-profits, schools, universities, sports teams and more. With 1000’s of products to choose from, our knowledgeable staff can help you find the perfect apparel item or product to suit your needs and budget.

Digital Sales

We offer a wide variety of traditional and new digital advertising options customized to fit your needs!

Whether you're just starting out, or you've been a keystone in the community for years, our knowledgeable staff can provide you with a customized package including online banners/advertisements, Social Media Marketing (Facebook / Twitter), Website development, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing solutions and much more!

Contact your local sales rep today for details, personalized proposal and a meeting to discuss how we can meet your needs.